Megaliths of the World brings together the latest research on megalithic monuments throughout the world. Many of these sites are well known, others less familiar, yet equally deserving of close attention. Megalithic monuments in different regions of the world are far from being a single unified phenomenon, having varied chronologies, and diverse origins, but they all share a certain family resemblance through their common characteristic: the deployment of large stones. No fewer than 150 researchers have contributed 72 articles and inserts, providing a vital region-by region account of the megalithic monuments in their specialist areas, and the current state of knowledge.
The insights offered in these volumes emphasize the particular character and significance of these apparently inanimate stones. The use of such large blocks must surely have been an expression of power or prestige, yet the size and materiality of the stones themselves opens up new perspectives into the meaning and symbolism of these monuments, the places from which the blocks were derived, and the way they were manipulated and shaped.
Megaliths of the World takes the reader on a fascinating journey, offering new insights through encounters with megaliths and megalithic traditions that will often be new and unfamiliar. Highlighting salient themes, it provides a compendium of detailed information that will be vital to anyone interested in the phenomenon of megalithic monumentality.
Recenzijas
It becomes evident by this very brief review that these 1400-page volumes offer, quite literally, a tour through the world of megaliths, demonstrating the sheer diversity of the phenomenon, in stylistic/architectural, socioeconomic, and ontological terms, as well as disseminating some exciting new data and extremely useful overviews. I will definitely use these volumes for my teaching and research, as they offer excellent entry points to further explore megalithic phenomena from across the world, and help put regional phenomena in broader perspective. Marta Dķaz-Guardamino (2023): European Journal of Archaeology 26 'This publication, presented in full colour, will appeal to anyone interested in understanding the grammar of architectural design and the role monuments played in the ritual activity of people who are, really, not so different from us.' George Nash (2024): Current World Archaeology 122
Preface - Roger Joussaume Introduction - Jean-Paul Cros, Sophie Corson, Jean-Marc Large, Luc Laporte PART I: MEGALITHS
Chapter 1: From the architectural project to megalithic ruins: a dynamic vision of 'petrified' remains - Luc Laporte
Chapter 2: Megalithism and monumentalism: a plea for broadening the debate - Alain Gallay
Chapter 3: From the rock throne to the burial chamber. History, myths and megaliths in Japan - Francois Mace, Laurent Nespoulous
Chapter 4: Megalithic genesis: construction of a cultural identity for better goods circulation - Tara Steimer-Herbet
Chapter 5: Stones in the landscape: Megalithic monuments in their wider setting - Chris Scarre PART II: MEGALITHS IN AMERICA Introduction - Jose R. Oliver, Luc Laporte
Chapter 6: Pre-Colombian megaliths of the Caribbean: bateyes and plazas of the Greater Antilles - Jose R. Oliver
Chapter 7: Megaliths of the Colombian Andes: Boyaca, Sierra Nevada del Cocuy and San Agustin - Jose R. Oliver
Chapter 8: The late Holocene megalithic structures at easternmost Amazonia - Joao Darcy De Moura Saldanha From stone to dust: ceramics and megalithism in Amapa (Brazil) - Marina Da Silva Costa
Chapter 9: Non-funerary megalithism among mobile hunter-gatherers and shepherds: Tulan-52 and Tulan-54 (Atacama Desert, Chile) - Catherine Perles, Lautaro Nunez PART III: MEGALITHS FROM EASTER ISLAND TO INDONESIA Introduction - Nicolas Cauwe, Tara Steimer-Herbet
Chapter 10: Aboriginal monumental stone-working in Northern Australia during the Pleistocene - Chris Urwin, Bruno David, Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Joshua A. Bell, Jean-Michel Geneste
Chapter 11: Megalithism in eastern Polynesia - Nicolas Cauwe
Chapter 12: Megalithic architectures in a world of oceanic 'little islands (Micro-nesia)' - Christophe Sand
Chapter 13: Mechanisms of appearance and disappearance of Indonesian megaliths - Tara Steimer-Herbet
Chapter 14: Menhirs of Tana Toraja (Indonesia): a preliminary ethnoarchaeological assessment - Ron Adams, Guillaume Robin
Chapter 15: Megaliths on Sumatra and Nias (Indonesia): concepts of 'value' behind the making of stone monuments - Dominik Bonatz
Chapter 16: The social context of megalithic practice: An ethnoarchaeological approach. What the case of the Indonesian island of Sumba teaches us - Christian Jeunesse Megalithic techniques at Sumba Island (Indonesia): from quarries to abandonment - Noisette Bec Drelon, Christian Jeunesse
Chapter 17: Setting the wider frame. A comparison of recent megalith building traditions in Sumba (Indonesia) and Nagaland (India) - Maria Wunderlich
PART IV: MEGALITHS FROM INDIA AND SOUTHEASTERN ASIA Introduction - Rabindra Kumar Mohanty, Johannes Muller
Chapter 18: Megalithic cultures in Southern Asia - Rabindra Kumar Mohanty
Chapter 19: Megalithic architectures in India - Rabindra Kumar Mohanty
Chapter 20: Northeast Indian megaliths: monuments and social structures - Tiatoshi Jamir, Johannes Muller
Chapter 21: Megalithic monuments of Jharkhand: archaeology and ethnography - Himanshu Shekhar, Rabindra Kumar Mohanty
Chapter 22: The stone jars of Southeast Asia and Northeast India: problems and prospects - Tilok Thakuria
Chapter 23: The dolmens of Karachi, Sindh (Pakistan) - Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro
Chapter 24: Megaliths in Vidarbha region (India) - Rabindra Kumar Mohanty Mahurjhari Megalithic Site (India) - Rabindra Kumar Mohanty Bhagimohari Megalithic Site (India) - Rabindra Kumar Mohanty
Chapter 25: Distributions and disparities in the megalithic burials of Vidarbha (India): a scrutiny - Virag Sontakke
Chapter 26: Social organisation of the megalithic people in Vidarbha, Maharashtra (India) - Shantanu Vaidya, Rabindra Kumar Mohanty
Chapter 27: Situating megalithic monuments in Tamil Nadu: content and context - K. RaJan PART V: MEGALITHS FROM CENTRAL AND EAST ASIA Introduction - Laurent Nespoulous, Anke Hein
Chapter 28: Monuments in the mountains: the megalithic graves of western China - Anke Hein
Chapter 29: Prehistoric cairns and dolmens in Manchuria (China) - Kazuo Miyamoto
Chapter 30: Dolmens and societies in the Korean Peninsula - Daisuke Nakamura
Chapter 31: Dolmens of the Korean Peninsula: Conservation and utilization in Hoseo (South Korea) - Joon-ho Son
Chapter 32: The development of stone art culture in ancient Korea - Takafumi Yamamoto
Chapter 33: From megalithic contexts in the Japanese archipelago, to megalithism as a context: Reflections for consideration, from the first sedentary societies to the first State societies - Laurent Nespoulous
Chapter 34: Prehistoric and protohistoric megaliths of the Japanese archipelago - Yoshio Kikuchi
Chapter 35: Bronze Age and Iron Age decorated megaliths and funerary complexes in Mongolia and Southern Siberia - Jerome Magail, Yuri Esin, Jamiyan-Ombo Gantulga, Fabrice Monna, Tanguy Rolland, Anne-Caroline Allard Digital 3D documentation of the Tamchinsky deer stone - Vladislav Kazakov, Vasily Kovalev, Kair Zhumadilov, Lyudmila Lbova, Aleksandr Simukhin
Chapter 36: Megalithic traditions in the Early Bronze Age of the Mongolian Altai: the Chemurchek (Qie'muerqieke) cultural phenomenon - Alexey Kovalev PART VI: MEGALITHS FROM CAUCASUS TO THE ARABIC PENINSULA Introduction - Tara Steimer-Herbet, Viktor Trifonov
Chapter 37: In the shadow of monoliths. Gobekli Tepe and the monumental tradition of the Pre-Pottery Levant - Remi Hadad
Chapter 38: The Bronze Age megaliths in the Caucasus: development trajectory of the architecture and the funeral practice - Viktor Trifonov
Chapter 39: The dolmens of the Balkans - Georgi Nekhrizov, Stanislav Iliev
Chapter 40: At the intersection of continents: Megalithism in Turkey - Bakiye Yukmen Edens
Chapter 41: Untangling megalith typologies and chronologies in the Levant - James Fraser
Chapter 42: Protohistoric cairns and tower tombs in South-Eastern Arabia (end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BCE) - Olivia Munoz
Chapter 43: Megalithism in the Middle East - Tara Steimer-Herbet PART VII: AFRICAN MEGALITHS Introduction - Jean-Paul Cros, Luc Laporte
Chapter 44: Megaliths of Africa: an overview - Alain Gallay
Chapter 45: The Horn of Africa: five millennia of megalithism - Jean-Paul Cros
Chapter 46: Pastoral Neolithic 'pillar sites' of northwestern Kenya - Elisabeth Hildebrand, Katherine M. Grillo
Chapter 47: Megaliths in Madagascar - Mike Parker Pearson
Chapter 48: Megaliths of Nigeria: the footprints of ancient civilization - Abu Solomon Edet, Abubakar Sule Sani
Chapter 49: Megaliths from Senegal and The Gambia in their regional context - Luc Laporte, Hamady Bocoum, Adrien Delvoye, Jean-Paul Cros, Selim Djouad, Matar Ndiaye, Aziz Ballouche, Pierre Lamotte, Mathilde Stern, Abdoulaye Ndiaye, Laurent Quesnel Earthern architectures and megalithism: the Soto monument (Senegal) - Adrien Delvoye, Khady Thiaw, Marylise Onfray, Matar Ndiaye, Philippe Gouezin, Abdoulaye Ndiaye, Vivien Mathe, Tioro Ba, Christian Camerlynck, Sire Ndiaye, Adrien Camus, Philippe Boulinguiez, Leonor Rocha, Pierre Lamotte, Aziz Ballouche, Hamady Bocoum, Luc Laporte
Chapter 50: Types of monumentalism and burial rites of the central and eastern Sahara - Alain Gallay
Chapter 51: Neolithic monuments with standing stones in the northwestern Sahara - Robert Vernet
Chapter 52: The megalithic necropolises of the eastern Maghreb - Joan Sanmarti PART VIII: EUROPEAN MEGALITHS Introduction - Chris Scarre
Chapter 53: Larger than life: monumentality of the landscape and non-human imagery at Lepenski (Serbia) - Dusan Boric
Chapter 54: On the Atlantic shores. The origin of megaliths in Europe? - Luc Laporte, Primitiva Bueno Ramirez Standing stones and sepulchral stone assemblies. Towards a convergence in thinking. The example of the megaliths in the Morbihan department, France - Philippe Gouezin
Chapter 55: First monumentalities in Western Europe: the necropolis of Fleury-sur-Orne, 'Les Hauts de l'Orne' (Normandy, France) - Emmanuel Ghesquiere, Philippe Chambon, David Giazzon, Corinne Thevenet, Aline Thomas
Chapter 56: Early monumentality in northern Europe - Johannes Muller, Karl-Goran Sjogren Old bones or early graves? A brief summary of megalithic burial sequences in southern Sweden based on radiocarbon dating - Malou Blank
Chapter 57: Beyond comparison: the diversity of megalith building - Richard Bradley
Chapter 58: Megaliths from north and northwest France, Britain and Ireland - Chris Scarre, Luc Laporte The clay binder: a link between megalithic funerary architecture and monumental non-megalithic architecture based on examples from Champagne (France) - Vincent Desbrosse, Julia Wattez aDNA and kinship in French Atlantic facade megalithic monuments - Olivia Cheronet, Daniel Fernandes, Inigo Olalde, Nadin Rohland, Ludovic Soler, Jean-Paul Cros, Jean-Marc Large, Chris Scarre, Roger Joussaume, David Reich, Luc Laporte, Ron Pinhasi Secrets in the stones: examining the presence of stones with inclusions in the passage tombs of Atlantic Europe - Patricia Kenny A study of 26 Irish prehistoric stone circles and their inbuilt sunrise calendars - Terence Meaden
Chapter 59: Mediterranean megalithism: a long-term history - Jean Guilaine The megalithic monument of Uzes (Gard, south of France) - Marie Bouchet, Philippe Cayn, Christian Servelle
Chapter 60: Megalithism versus cyclopeism: the case of prehistoric Menorca (Balearic Islands, Spain) - Cristina Bravo Asensio, Irene Riudavets Gonzalez
Chapter 61: Small is Beautiful: Early megalithism and the first funerary architectures in south-central Portugal (southwestern Iberia) - Marco Antonio Andrade, Rui Mataloto, Andre Pereira
Chapter 62: Megalithic art: Funeral scenarios in western Neolithic Europe - Primitiva Bueno Ramirez, Rosa Barroso Bermejo, Rodrigo De Balbin Behrmann Don Bosco: a new Final Neolithic megalithic cemetery at Sion (Valais-Switzerland) - Manuel Mottet Conclusion - Luc Laporte
Luc Laporte is Research Director at CNRS (France). He is a specialist of the Neolithic period in Europe, and on the subject of megaliths in general, and is the author of more than 140 scientific articles in international journals. He has written a book on the megaliths of western France and edited several reference collective works on the megaliths of Western Europe and Africa megaliths, for the Neolithic and Protohistoric periods. His field works focused mostly on the study of reference sites such as the tumulus C of Péré in Prissé-la-Charričre (France) and the World Heritage megalithic site of Wanar (Senegal), but also in East Africa (Djibouti) and South America (Argentina, Peru). He has been teaching at the Universities of Rennes for more than twenty years, and his expertise is regularly sought by various national or international institutions (UNESCO, National Geographic, CNRA, ANR, Fondation de France, etc.).
TARA STEIMER-HERBET is a graduate of Paris 1 - Panthéon La Sorbonne where she carried out her doctoral research on developing a methodological approach to Middle Eastern archaeology. Her research led her to become particularly interested in megalithism, and the way this phenomenon is expressed in the cultural and funerary practices of the Levant and western Arabia during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. In 2005 she excavated a sanctuary in Hadramawt (Yemen) and since 2010 has focussed on the megalithic phenomenon in Indonesia. Her research efforts currently concentrate on the preservation of megalithic monuments in the Akkar region of Lebanon as well as on characterising the megalithic phenomenon of the 3rd and 2d millennium BC in the Kuwait region of al-Subiya, Dr Steimer currently teaches archaeological methodology and megalithism in the world at the Laboratory of Prehistoric Archaeology and Anthropology of the University of Geneva, Switzerland.
